How B2B Brands Win With Community Events

Frequent moves taught Shantanu to adapt, though change never became easy. Each move brought a new environment, friendships and goodbyes. Attending nine schools taught him to build relationships quickly, whether others were new or he was the sole newcomer.

He connects this experience to stakeholder management in RevOps. Operations leaders often enter as outsiders and must explain their perspective, a change's context and its relevance. Reading new environments, building relationships and communicating across groups became central to his work.

Shantanu identifies three foundations. First, a system needs enough data to reveal dependable patterns. Second, the data must fit the commercial context. A model trained on broad internet material knows many sales formats but cannot always serve a precise B2B use case.

Organisations must therefore limit datasets to relevant information. Third, companies must address security and compliance when handling customer information, a prominent concern in Europe. Systems must interpret enough relevant, governed data before teams apply insights to workflows, signals and actions.

ABM centres on understanding the account. Instead of compiling context manually, teams can use Gong to review selected accounts, summarise activity and examine past conversations. This reveals recurring challenges, themes and patterns developed over weeks, months or years.

Teams can prioritise a few enterprise accounts and shape activity around their discussions. The approach also supports executive preparation without creating documents that soon become outdated. Users can request concise summaries in a required format, using conversations, emails and CRM information alongside voice recordings.

Shantanu contrasts broad awareness campaigns with smaller, relevant occasions. Gong increasingly used exclusive dinners and focused events. Teams selected a clear ICP and used account information to identify companies and personas more likely to buy. They also used this approach to deepen strategic customer relationships.

He cites RevOps dinners in London. These gatherings helped participants build networks, supported a RevOps community and introduced Gong to less familiar attendees. Their value came from gathering a carefully selected group around a shared subject, not maximising attendance.

Shantanu recommends finding where the intended audience already gathers. A smaller company should define its target persona and find an active community serving that audience. It can approach organisers about sponsoring a small event. Existing connections offer a more efficient route than building an audience alone.

Many virtual communities emerged from 2021 onwards, followed by efforts to bring those relationships into physical settings. He founded a European RevOps community where over 100 members connect and ask questions. With agreement, a suitable sponsor can address the group at an event.

Shantanu argues that teams should focus less on top-of-funnel volume and more on mid-funnel customer outcomes. They should avoid making attribution the main measure. As spray-and-pray outreach weakens, thousands of impressions do not guarantee greater marketing value. Smaller audiences matter more when relevant and nearer decisions.

Teams must help buyers understand the concrete value available. They should move beyond promoting another attractive software tool and explain expected outcomes and how customers will achieve them. As technology companies scrutinise ROI, profitability, margins and unit economics, deeper mid-funnel conversations carry more weight.

Shantanu highlights two requirements. The vendor needs a compelling problem to solve, not only an impressive product. It can help enterprises recognise normalised inefficiencies, such as assigning people to manual processes. The vendor can then show how another approach returns time or delivers a clearer outcome.

The vendor must also identify who owns the issue. In large organisations, familiar personas and senior titles can mislead. A chief revenue officer does not always select a specific system, while a RevOps leader sometimes delegates that work. Success requires finding the real problem and its evaluator.

Enterprise buying involves more participants than the visible champion. Accounting, procurement and finance can join the process, extending deal cycles and demanding more alignment. The first person to see value does not always control budgets, approve security or manage procurement. Their support can still bring a solution into internal discussions.

Vendors need patience and relevance across several organisational levels. They must understand the work, equip those closest to it and recognise individual contributors' influence. Events linked to industry gatherings can create meetings, but they must address the practical problems and stakeholder relationships behind each purchase.